Graingers Off Licence

Strange little offie this — attached to the pub next door and you have to ring a bell to get in initially, I presume so they can have a look at you and superficially judge that you are not a psycho.
Once you are cleared for entrance, then this tiny little shop has all your basic alcohol needs — beer, wine, spirits, but don’t go looking for anything fancy. It’s fine, but it’s not somewhere you would go for a browse — once you’ve been locked in, you feel obligated to buy something.

To gain access to Graingers Off Licence you need to press the buzzer and wait for someone to come over from the pub and let you in. So it can feel a little bit like ‘here’s the alcoholic, I need my alcohol fix, let me in pleeaasssseee!’
I let the fear of being perceived as a little too keen for the booze stop me shopping here for quite some time. I’d walk past and almost walk in, but chicken out at the last moment, justifying my lack of guts with the false sense of security that the Centra down the road has just as good a variety of reds (it doesn’t).
Anyway the first time I braved the buzzer was in an act of desperation. We were having a garden party, had run out of Pimm’s, as had all the other offies in the area. Ahhhhh not a good situation to find oneself in!
So in a last ditch attempt we reluctantly pressed the buzzer to Grainger’s secretive cavern of liquor. It’s a rather tiny shop so our hopes of attaining the elusive Pimms were small. However we took the plunge anyway, and were duly rewarded by the very friendly assistant who magically plucked a bottle (the very last one!) from some hidden shelf space.
The Pimms was actually several euros cheaper than the same bottle at the next-​closest off licence (whose name I won’t mention) and Graingers actually stock a really decent variety of wines (and some really great sale ones!)
When we were there you could even nab yourself a complimentary single-​use barbecue with the purchase of some description of alcohol. Bonus! Luckily for us though our BBQ was already cooking… so back to the party we went, heroes bearing Graingers-​bought Pimms :-)